Photos by Elena Bessi
SHORT BIO
Namrata Poddar writes fiction and nonfiction, serves as Interviews Editor for Kweli, and teaches literature at UCLA. Her debut novel, Border Less, is a Silver Medalist for Best Regional Fiction from 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards, a finalist for Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award and Feminist Press's Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, and longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her other writing has appeared in several publications including Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Longreads, The Kenyon Review, and The Best Asian Short Stories. She holds a PhD in French literature from the University of Pennsylvania, an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Transnational Cultures from UCLA. Find her on Instagram and Threads, @writerpoddar, on X, @poddar_namrata, and on Bluesky, @namratapoddar.
LONG BIO
Namrata Poddar (pronounced: Nuhm-ruh-THAA Poe-DHAAR) is a first-generation Asian American writer of fiction and nonfiction, an Interviews Editor for Kweli journal where she curates the series, “Race, Power and Storytelling,” faculty of literature at UCLA’s Honors Program, and a certified Yoga teacher. For nearly two decades, her writing, research and teaching have explored the intersection of storytelling and social justice through the questions of race, class, gender, place and migration.
Her debut novel, Border Less, released in 2022 from 7.13 Books in North America and from HarperCollins India in South Asia. It is a Silver Medalist for Best Regional Fiction (for West-Pacific) from 2023 Independent Publisher Book Awards, a finalist for 2022 Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award (for Multicultural Adult Fiction) and Feminist Press's Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, a semi-finalist for Black Lawrence Press’s The Big Moose Prize; it was also longlisted for C&R Press Book Award and for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. The novel was featured in the most anticipated, best or favorite books and other booklists for 2022 by The Millions, Ms. Magazine, Brown Girl Bookshelf, BuzzFeed News, Chicago Review of Books, Washington Independent Review of Books, Aster(ix) Journal, and more.
Namrata’s early literary criticism and journalism focused on stories of oceanic travel, empire, environmentalism, tourism, and multiculturalism by Francophone South Asian diaspora from the Indian Ocean region. She has written on oceanic migration in English and in French for various anthologies on the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Her creative nonfiction and recent writing across genres explore ways in which contemporary writers and storytellers of color (including herself) play with form and tell stories from outside of a colonial imagination. Her fiction also centers the lives of a global, 21st century South Asian community, including migrant women in both North America and South Asia. Her creative writing across forms or disciplines has appeared in Longreads, Literary Hub, The Kenyon Review, Poets & Writers, Electric Literature, Catapult, The Millions, The Margins, Transition, Raising Mothers, The Caravan, and elsewhere. Her short stories have won the first prize at the contest organized by 14th international short story conference (judged by Bharati Mukherjee and Clark Blaise) and the New Asian Writing Prize; featured in The Best Asian Short Stories anthology, and placed a semi-finalist for American Short Fiction’s Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize.
Namrata holds a Ph.D. in French Studies from the University of Pennsylvania with an emphasis on postcolonial literatures, an MFA in Fiction from Bennington Writing Seminars, and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Transnational Cultures from UCLA. She has spoken on contemporary multiethnic Anglophone and Francophone storytelling in conferences, literary and cultural events across the world, and judged national as well as state level writing contests. She has taught literature and creative writing at different institutions in India and the U.S., including her recent teaching for the Honors Program and the departments of English, French & Francophone, Global, African, and Asian American Studies at UCLA. She was a recent contributor to The Los Angeles Times where she focused on the art and sociocultural diversity of Orange County. For 2020, she curated a fashion blog on Instagram (@stylegully) with stories of clothing, identity and diversity via South Asia. She is currently at work on a memoir in essays about motherhood, migration, and intergenerational healing. As part of her longstanding interest in healing practices, she has also completed her yoga teacher training from Siddhi Yoga international school. She holds further certifications in Ayurveda, Reiki, Chakra Healing, and is currently pursuing teacher training in Restorative Yoga and Pranayamas (Breathwork).
Namrata is multilingual with "roots" in the Thar Desert's migrant Marwari community. Born in Kolkata, raised in Mumbai, she has lived in Tours and Avignon (France), Quatre Bornes (Mauritius), Philadelphia, and Los Angeles (USA). She now lives with her family in Huntington Beach, part of Greater Los Angeles.
Beyond a world of books, she’s passionate about yoga, meditation, travel, food, natural surroundings, spending time with loved ones, and doing nothing by the beach. She is represented by Saba Sulaiman at Talcott Notch Literary Services.